Robust video transmission over lossy network by exploiting H.264/AVC data partitioning

In this paper, a robust H.264/AVC video transmission system over lossy packet network is investigated and implemented. The H.264/AVC standard has defined a new data partition scheme which can be used to perform unequal loss protection (ULP) in video transmission systems. However, few actual implementation and experiments which integrate data partition and loss protection algorithms have been reported. Based on the H.264/AVC data partitioning mechanism, we implement three loss protection schemes using Reed-Solomon and XOR parity codes, namely equal loss protection (ELP), ULP and partition A protection only (PAP). The performance of each scheme is evaluated under different network environments. Experimental results and performance analysis show that ELP has higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) values than ULP and PAP, but PAP requires the least redundancy and offers the best tradeoffs between PSNR values and redundancy among all the three schemes.